Canyon climbing and bushwhacking yesterday…

Yesterday 3 of us went exploring up a narrow, steep canyon out in the hills. There was Tomas — a botanist,  Peter — a local organic farmer, and myself. Tomas and I are both trained runners and I guess we both thought we’d have to go slow for Peter. We got about 10 minutes into the hike, up a steep fire trail and I notice Tomas and I were breathing heavily — and Peter wasn’t. We were at it for 5-1/2 hours, wading through the water, crawling over logs and ducking under brush.

Peter and TomasIt continually amazes me what”s in one’s own territory. If you get away from electronics and roust around in the nearby world, there’s a treasury of riches — true wherever you live.

Bones of a deer, laid out in precise order, deep in the canyon. Peter says coyotes would scatter the bones, but this was a mountain lion, who meticulously consumed its prey. You can barely see the skull with horns at the top. An artistic predator, leaving something that resembles a cave painting.

When we got as far up the canyon as we could, we climbed up the side and headed vaguely in the direction of a place called Pablo Point. For an hour and a half we bushwhacked through the brush, following the faintest of animal trails, doubling back, crawling and sometimes bellying along until we finally reached Pablo Point, trails to which are now abandoned. I won’t say Peter kicked our asses, but I’ll say that keeping up with him had me totally exhausted at the end of the day. We had just the greatest time. A beautiful day, exploring unknown territory, little waterfalls on the sides, listening to these two guys swapping info about trees and plants and — getting a killer workout.

Lloyd and Peter

PS I love doing stuff and coming back and writing it up like this. There just ain’t enough time to do as much of it as I’d like. 

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

3 Responses to Canyon climbing and bushwhacking yesterday…

Leave a Reply